Thomas Brand, a Puritan, expressed great delight when he heard that certain actresses had been hissed and pelted. The first result of bringing women on to the stage was to give the rein to more unbridled licence than before in the manners of the court and of society.
It was the presence of Queen Henrietta which brought over a French company of players with women among them to England in 1659. They established themselves at the celebrated theatre in Blackfriars. But whether their distinguished countrywoman was unable or unwilling to do anything on their behalf, they were very roughly received, less because of the women in the company than because they were foreigners. Their advent gave Prynne an opportunity for venting his indignation. To the stern Puritan the sight of women on the boards was a great additional aggravation. No English company seems to have introduced women till 1660. Pepys, who, as every one knows, was an indefatigable playgoer, records that the first time he saw women act was on January 3, 1660. This was at the Theatre Royal, Clare Market, the play being The Beggar’s Bush. Three days later he saw actresses in Ben Jonson’s play, The Silent Woman. It has been said that Othello was the play in which women first appeared in England, at a performance given on December 8, 1660. Mrs. Anne Marshall, Mrs. Sanders (afterwards to become famous as Mrs. Betterton, a most successful impersonator of Shakespeare’s female parts), Mrs. Margaret Hughes, and Mrs. Coleman were among the first actresses who appeared in public. Mrs. Betterton, whose character was unexceptionable, was selected to give lessons in elocution to the two princesses, Mary and Anne, daughters of James II.
A sort of precedent for women acting in stage plays was to be found in the court performances. It was not till the reign of Charles II. that professional actresses appeared in public, but Queen Anne, wife of James I., was accustomed to take an active part in the masques performed at court, where she was both actress and manager.[59] That these were not mere impromptus may be gathered from the fact that the cost of a performance often exceeded £1000. In the reign of Charles I. the ladies of the court, headed by the Queen, Henrietta Maria, played a French pastoral at Hampton Court to enliven the Christmas season. The French Queen was very favourably disposed towards the stage, and when the churchwardens and constables in 1631 petitioned Archbishop Laud to get Blackfriars Theatre removed, on the ground that it was a nuisance to trade and the public generally, and begged that the council would see to the matter, the answer was returned that the queen was “well affected towards plays, and that therefore good regulation is more to be provided than suppression decreed.” Various members of the aristocracy also took to the stage, or rather the actors under their protection. One of the most constant supporters of the dramatic art was the Countess of Holland, daughter of Sir Walter Cope, whose husband had been executed in 1649. Holland House, Kensington, was frequently the scene of dramatic entertainments.
Women are now so necessary to stage performances that it is odd to find arguments gravely set forth in favour of their presence. The reasons assigned for introducing women were that men failed to act women’s parts satisfactorily; that boys were no more suitable than girls, and some of the “boys” were middle-aged men, who could not properly impersonate young maidens. When in the reign of Charles II. patents were granted to Killigrew and Davenant for their theatres, the following regulations appeared—
“And forasmuch as many plays formerly acted do contain several profane, obscene, and scurrilous passages, and the women’s parts therein have been acted by men in the habits of women at which some have taken offence; for the preventing of these abuses for the future we do strictly charge, command and enjoin that from henceforth no new plays shall be acted by either of the said companies containing any passages offensive to piety and good manners, nor any old or revived play containing any such offensive passages as aforesaid, until the same shall be corrected and purged by the said masters or governors of the said respective companies from all such offensive and scandalous passages as aforesaid. And we do likewise permit and give leave that all the women’s parts to be acted in either of the said two companies from this time to come may be performed by women, so long as these recreations which by reason of the abuses aforesaid were scandalous and offensive may by such reformation be esteemed not only harmless delights, but useful and instructive representations of human life, by such of our good subjects as shall resort to see the same.”
The character of the plays acted in the seventeenth century fitted the temper of the times. Wycherley, Congreve, Mrs. Aphra Behn, and their brothers and sisters in the craft were not too outspoken for the taste of that day. Evelyn, it is true, was a severe censor, but he was a man of the world who had travelled and seen many things. “In London,” he says, “there were more wicked and obscene plays permitted than in all the world besides.” And this, too, in Lent, which added much to the offence.
It is said that the audiences give the tone to the stage, and that a moral and cultured public would purify the drama. The audiences of the Restoration period did not certainly perform their part towards effecting such a consummation. Their behaviour in the playhouse has often been noted. They showed plainly that low jests and coarse allusions were to their taste and what they expected, and they would have scoffed at or yawned over more decorous language. If the piece were not to their liking they treated the performers with scant ceremony, and hissed and pelted them. Such demonstrations were the more frequent owing to the custom of caricaturing living persons. The actresses, when not playing, moved about in the front rows of the auditorium among their admirers. Then, again, the occupants of the pit would make audible comments on the ladies sitting in the boxes, who did not disdain to retort, greatly to the amusement of the rest of the house. The theatre was the rallying point for adventurers and libertines of both sexes, and served many purposes besides its legitimate one of entertainment.
In the eighteenth century, when the custom of toasting ladies prevailed, plays were given “for the entertainment of the new Toasts and several Ladies of Quality.” This always brought a crowded audience. The auditorium was frequently the scene of quarrels, and the custom of allowing spectators to stand about on the stage was the cause of much disorder. On one occasion, in 1721, a regular fray occurred, owing to the presence of some tipsy noblemen; and the king, George I., gave orders that thenceforth a guard of soldiers should protect the actors during the performance. One could not expect in that age to find any regard paid to the sentiments of women, and omissions made from the plays lest their susceptibilities should be wounded. Yet this was done in one instance certainly,[60] and the passage left out was not one of peculiar coarseness, but one which vaunted man’s superiority over woman. Those were not the days of equal rights between men and women, and there could hardly have been many women who would have been offended at the claims of the male sex to supremacy. Dr. Trusler, writing of the eighteenth century, says—
“Many of our comedies are improper for a young lady to be seen at; as, indeed, there are few English comedies that a modest girl can see without hurting her delicacy.”
The attentions of the audience to a popular actress were a little overwhelming at times. A knot of admirers would gather round the door of a lady’s dressing-room, and insist upon escorting her home. As late as the middle of the century the manners of the gallery were so rough that it was no uncommon thing for an orange to be flung at a lady in court dress.